US is #1 in percent of people in prison

[Eric J in MN]

http://talkleft.com/new_archives/006755.html#006755

"America now is the greatest jailer on earth. We imprison 715 out of every 100,000 citizens, the highest number on the planet. By contrast, Canada's rate of incarceration is 116 out of 100,000, China's is 119 per 100,000 and Germany is 96 per 100,000. Our rate of imprisoning our citizens is approximately 600% higher than either China or Canada."

[saigon68]

1. A lot of men of Color

30% of all black men between the ages of 20-29 are either
In prison, in jail, on parole or on probation.

Disgusting !!!!!!!!!

[Alerter_]

3. working for "private prison contractors" for 25 cents an hour, like China!

Isn't Communism grand! Oops, I mean, Capitalism!

[Liberal Veteran]

2. Ain't freedom grand?

:eyes:

[Langis]

4. I would like to know what % of those people at in for Drug related

Charges?

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

7. I would like to know what % of those people are in for poverty related"

Charges?

[indepat]

10. And what percent of those for simple possession and no violent

crime(s)associated therewith? Are we the only nation in the world willing to spend perhaps hundreds of thousands of dollars to incarcerate someone for an incredible number of years who has neither committed a violent crime nor stolen/damaged the property of others?

[Alerter_]

11. a lot, I'm sure a majority

The drug war started under Bush/Reagan. All the while they were "allowing" cocaine to come into the country to pay for their "privatized" wars in El Salvador. Then, they made prisons into a business and started locking up people, and using them as cheap slave labor. Oh, and Clinton kept it going.

[AP]

5. USA! USA! USA!

[Mandate My Ass]

6. And yet they hate us for our freedom...

:crazy:

[BlueEyedSon]

8. Yay! We are number 1 in SOMETHING....!

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

9. This should be pinned to the top...for freedom lovers everywhere.

"Free" my ass.

[JayS]

12. For those of you that are working the "Drug War" angle of this...

...and have to work with conservatives, of either party, the following seems to help.

*Couch everything in terms of money. Locking someone up for a petty drug offense means you pay to incarcerate them, you may pay welfare if there is a family involved, you lose income tax while the person is in jail, and a bad mark on a person's record may keep them from getting a job or getting a good job and thus cutting revenue from income taxes.

*You don't have to legalize drugs, just treat it as a medical problem and not a criminal one.

*Freeing up jail space means you have space for violent offenders, so criminals that commit a crime with a gun can have a cell for decades.

*Play up the minority angle. The prison population has a high minority representation and votes can be gotten by helping free prisoners with petty drug offenses.

I find the above works well and am using it now on one of our Reps. Sadly, it is a Republican but that is all I could get to listen.

[Mandate My Ass]

13. Excellent points, well laid out too

However, no matter how many RWers you convert, progress
is undermined because the Prison Industrial Complex is
paying huge amounts of graft to politicians to pass legislation
for mandatory minimums and other punitive sentencing guidelines.

THe money in this is huge and it's not going to go away. Private
prisons and their maintenance and supply are considered to be the most profitable industry in the US today. Just like the Iraq war profiteering we see, the PIC is the incestuous coupling of
government and industry against the best interests of society.

The telecom companies are making a fortune because they put
people as far away from family as they possibly can and then
charge them up to six times the normal rate for telephone calls.

Then there's prison labor which undermines the wages of the
unencarcerated.

This is a huge stain on the USA which has not received nearly
enough attention from the media.

As a friend of mine in the Defender's Office said when I asked
him how we can convince our representatives to stop this nonsense,
"Nobody was ever voted out of office for being too tough on crime."

It's too easy to scare the populace into supporting what is a modern
gulag system.

[JayS]

16. the Prison Industrial Complex is paying huge amounts of graft

I'm glad you like that info. :) The PIC is definately something to worry about. It was why I was surprised to find anyone interested in the issue. I think the deal that is going on here behind the scenes is that we will decrease the short-term non-violent "criminals" but, using various mandatory minimums, increase the long-term violent offenders. The public is happy, the politician is happy, and the prisons are happy because it takes some serious dollars to keep violent prisoners locked up.

[JayS]

17. I forgot to add that I am having better luck with politicians that...

...have not been in office long and are looking to make a name for themselves without disrupting an established career. If you start getting feedback that falls along the lines of "this will be a policy change" or "we will need to look at how this will be perceived" then you can move on to the next politician.

Oh, and Ron Paul will be interested. He is a nutcase but he will listen. :)

[Mandate My Ass]

18. Non-violent prisoners are starting to outnumber

their more violent peers. Because private prison industries pay crap wages to inexperienced untrained guards, they prefer the nonviolent prisoners to fill their cells. And some of them have stipulations in their contract that they will charge for a certain percentage of beds whether they are filled or not. Why not pick up some dopers to make it even more profitable? And this is from an old link of mine...

http://www.xs4all.nl/~tank/spg/art/prisomindus.htm

In reality, however, most of the "criminals" we lock up are poor people who commit nonviolent crimes out of economic need. Violence occurs in less than 14% of all reported crime, and injuries occur in just 3%. In California, the top three charges for those entering prison are: possession of a controlled substance, possession of a controlled substance for sale, and robbery. Violent crimes like murder, rape, manslaughter and kidnapping don't even make the top ten.

[JayS]

19. This is where it starts to get hard. The PIC and the War On...

...Drugs are such big business that the fight becomes a David v. Goliath type deal. Increasing the funds flow to the PIC may buy the support of the prison industry...but the War On Drugs...who doesn't have their finger in that pie? Making it worse, both of these problems are big pink elephants in the room with you that you are supposed to simultaneously ignore and talk about. Not fun at all. I have not had to really deal with this yet so any ideas y'all have...bring it on! :)



Forgot this in the last post:
*Play up the family stuff. If you toss one parent in jail you run the risk of breaking up the family with all the problems that can bring. Play up the issues they bandy about regarding single parent households and unsupervised kids. Try not to rub it in. :)

[JayS]

22. Thump n/t

n/t

[Alerter_]

15. excellent points

I think it's time to go offense on the drug war. Nobody wants their kids locked up for smoking a joint.

[J2001]

14. Republicans in prison

I bet the upper percentage of people in prison or republicans LMAO

[troublemaker]

20. This statistic is UNFAIR!!!!!!

We used to be number three behind Russia and South Africa. We are only number one now because of the collapse of the USSR and of apartheid. Just because certain other ruthless totalitarian states drop the ball on oppressing their own people suddenly we're the bad guy? Let a player play!

USA! #1! USA! #1! USA! #1! USA! #1!

[JayS]

21. No bronze or silver for us. We want the gold medal! :) n/t

n/t